Posted
by
timothy
on Saturday August 11, 2012 @02:43PM
from the world-improving dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Last week at SIGGRAPH, Pixar Animation Studios announced OpenSubdiv, an open source implementation of the Renderman subdivision surface technology, thus releasing the patents to the long standing Pixar 'secret sauce.' In addition to the offline subdivision scheme, it also includes a GPU implementation. This video demonstrates a realtime deforming subdivision surface running at 50 FPS in Maya (though it is freely available to use anywhere). The source code is available on Pixar's GitHub account."
Says the project's site: "OpenSubdiv is covered by the Microsoft Public License, and is free to use for commercial or non-commercial use. This is the same code that Pixar uses internally for animated film production."

Yes, and to make it not completely obvious, we should expand it as Open Source Junk Distribution Blessing or some other such (I didn't want to stare at thesaurus.com's ugly-ass site for any longer than it took to find something that just barely worked for the B).

Uhhh...wasn't those all things that ALRAEDY were Open Source and Apple just threw some money at them? I know webkit was KHTML from the KDE guys and frankly wouldn't be surprised if the others are similarly open source software that Apple found useful and decided to sink some money into.

After all Microsoft is in the top 10 when it comes to contributions to the Linux kernel, that don't make them a friend of Linux.

Clang was created by Apple, on top of LLVM, along with LLDB, and turned LLVM from a research project into a multi-billion dollar replacement to GCC. WebKit is not KHTML/KJS. It's all new. launchd, Bonjour, etc., are all Apple opening their internal stuff to the public, not to mention Darwin.

CUPS is not Apple-originated, but Apple did buy the company that created it. Libdispatch is entirely Apple-original. LLVM is not, but Apple-paid developers wrote a significant amount of the code (I think they're now down to less than half, but that's because of others - including Google - contributing more, not Apple contributing less). Clang was originally created by Apple, open sourced, and a lot of code contributions still come from Apple. Launchd was created by Apple, released under the APSL, and th

"an open source implementation of the Renderman subdivision surface technology, thus releasing the patents to the long standing Pixar 'secret sauce."

The Renderman Interface spec already contains how the subdivision surfaces are supposed to be described and computed, so we know how to do that. There are already other implementations. Moreover, publishing the source code does not "release patents" in any meaningful sense, not to mention the fact that patents are, by definition, public.

IANAL, but since it specifies "derivative works" as being covered, I think you could write your own implementations, especially if you included even a tiny snippet of the original code. Might have to license it under the same license, though (again, not a lawyer so I'm not sure)

If you included a large enough snippet to have your work considered derivative, then it would also need to be licensed under the Ms-PL. Not sure why Balmer went all stupid over the evils of "viral" open source licensing, they wrote the same sort of beast themselves.

You should read the license. It includes a worldwide, royalty free license grant. It does indeed "release patents" with the small qualification that if you sue Pixar for patent infringement your royalty free license is automatically yanked.

You should read the license. It includes a worldwide, royalty free license grant. It does indeed "release patents" with the small qualification that if you sue Pixar for patent infringement your royalty free license is automatically yanked.

Thanks to Patent Trolls (non practising entities) this retaliation clause means absolutely nothing, it's the prime function of Shell Corps. You want to sue Pixar? Just spin up a new Paper Person, toss some patent and moolah grants their way and sick 'em. What is Pixar going to do against such a non practising entity? They don't make anything, so they can't counter sue for infringement.

Our intent is to encourage high performance accurate subdiv drawing by giving away the "good stuff".

I want to be wrong about this. I really do. But I read this as "our intent is to establish a tie to our proprietary products Renderman and Maya via a license carefully designed by Microsoft to be incompatible with GPL, and thus Blender."

Well, this would be as good a time as any to point out that Maya is not the only game in town. There is Blender of course. And there is my as-yet-unannounced project based on a half edge meshing technology that is way superior to the creaky old infrastructure Maya relies on. There are already some great results in terms of high complexity meshes and excellent real time performance. So far it has been just me pushing on the code, but that should change pretty soon. Go here [phunq.net] to find out about World Welder. Check out some demo images here [phunq.net], here [phunq.net] and here [phunq.net]. Those are all high triangle count, high complexity meshes rendering at smooth interactive frame rates on low end hardware. There are various algorithms in use. The 3D Freetype Unicode fonts are done with Root3 subdivision, arguably superior to Catmull Clark favored by the Maya crowd. Still lots of work to do to implement boundaries, creases, deformable heirarchy and the like, but the base it's built on is solid as a rock. And really compact as well, yes sometimes you can have it all. Anyway, I will be making a more official project announcement in due course but for now, a tarball is online here [phunq.net]. I apologize in advance for the documentation quality, but not for the code quality. Please be kind to my server and don't browse all the images, it's just a cable modem with pathetic upload bandwidth. (By the way, sponsorship in the form of web hosting would be much appreciated.)

There remains much work to do, sigh, there always is. But this is already the skeleton of a nice 3D meshing workbench, and it is time to put some meat on the bones. Language is C++11, scripting is Lua, GUIs are GLX and QT, revision control is Mercurial, license is GPLv3. Anybody who wants to join the mailing list is more than welcome, developers and future users alike.

Our intent is to encourage high performance accurate subdiv drawing by giving away the "good stuff".

I want to be wrong about this. I really do. But I read this as "our intent is to establish a tie to our proprietary products Renderman and Maya via a license carefully designed by Microsoft to be incompatible with GPL, and thus Blender."

You'll be happy to know then that you're likely at least partially wrong.First: http://www.blender.org/BL/ [blender.org] -- from this, you may conclude that their intent is to force Blender to activate the Blender License.Second: Blender is licensed under "GNU General Public License v2 or later" -- and that "or later" bit is key here, as the MS-PL is compatible with GPLv3, just not with GPLv2. The end result of this is that the code is compatible with any GPLv3 code *and* any GPLv2 code with the "or later" clause that is used with Blender libraries and derivatives. It should also be compatible with the LGPL.

Yes... and that description hasn't changed since MS-PL first made headlines on Slashdot... which was before GPLv3 first made headliens on Slashdot. My guess is that nobody at FSF has bothered to update the MS-PL description since GPLv3 was created.

Yes... and that description hasn't changed since MS-PL first made headlines on Slashdot... which was before GPLv3 first made headliens on Slashdot. My guess is that nobody at FSF has bothered to update the MS-PL description since GPLv3 was created.

That's your opinion, or is it legal advice? And are you seriously suggesting that the FSF does not pay careful attention to the accuracy of information it posts on its license information page? Why don't you email Eben Moglen and ask?

It's my opinion, and not legal advice. If it WAS legal advice, it wouldn't be legal legal advice. I am seriously suggesting that the FSF posted a suggestion and recommendation that still remains correct -- they have not further analysed all the ramifications and there has been no legal precedent, so the best recommendation they can make is the one they've already made (which is still accurate, as it's a recommendation). While it's possible Eben and the FSF have revisited their original study of the inter

Being a 3D artist this does interest me. I use Modo, Maya, Zbrush, and Mudbox frequently and subd standard is very useful. Does your intended implementation share subdivision order Pixar's spec? Does UV smoothing result in identical UV borders? Currently this is a pretty big problem with multi-app workflows. For instance, a multiresolution mesh that has been smoothed in Zbrush results in different smoothing than a mesh that is smoothed with Pixar Psub subdivision surfaces in Modo. Even more confusing is that this difference also appears when comparing Mudbox to Modo. They both use the Catmull Clark subdivision standard however do not share identical UV smoothing. This can be overcome with linear UV's but that in itself causes problems for 2d texture painting. They do however seem to share point order from tests that I've done. Open-source subdivision technology originating from Pixar sounds like a wonderful thing that could alleviate some of the problems I mentioned. After all it's coming from the source of subdivision technology. Catmull Clark subdivision was created by Ed Catmull of Pixar and Jim Clark, co-founder of Silicon Graphics.
Many of the custom implementations of subdivison surfaces I have seen cause a lot of problems on exchange. Modo's custom implementation of subd's prior to incorporation of Pixar Psub was pretty slick actually. It was fast, allowed for N-gons and supported some very dirty edge creasing. So it had big drawbacks when exchanging with other apps like Maya before they added Psub's.
I guess my point in mentioning all this is that I hope what you are working on is capable of accommodating these kinds of needs, otherwise I and many other artists may not be able to use it due to workflow additions. Although it's very cool and I'd love to hear more about what you are doing.

Being a 3D artist this does interest me. I use Modo, Maya, Zbrush, and Mudbox frequently and subd standard is very useful. Does your intended implementation share subdivision order Pixar's spec? Does UV smoothing result in identical UV borders?

Pixar compatibility is not a feature I intend to code myself, however anybody who wants to take it on is welcome. The World Welder meshing API is clean, powerful, efficient and nice to work with. Currently, there is no UV interpolation in the subdivision algorithms at all, that work is upcoming. Any acceptable interpolation must produce identical UV at matching borders, anything else is a bug.

Open-source subdivision technology originating from Pixar sounds like a wonderful thing that could alleviate some of the problems I mentioned. After all it's coming from the source of subdivision technology. Catmull Clark subdivision was created by Ed Catmull of Pixar and Jim Clark, co-founder of Silicon Graphics.

To tell the truth, Catmull-Clark was the first and worst of the crop of modern subdivision algorithms. It has terrib

While its just a YouTube comment, it seems a Pixar representative made some comments of his own. Amongst them was one which explicitly stated that Blender can implement OpenSubdiv [youtube.com] if they wanted to.

Of course the comment holds no legal weight whatsoever, but its an encouraging sign.

A snip from that comment (emphasis mine):

OpenSubdiv is a free open-source API : any software vendor can implement our code in their application, including Maya, 3DS Max, Mudbox, Mari or Blender. The implementation is based o

As you say, a Youtube comment means nothing. Let's see what the resolution with Blender is, and let's see just what the patent grant is. The truth could range anywhere from cynical manipulation to awesome gift to humanity. Frankly I've seen too much cynical manipulation to be awfully hopeful about the latter though.

The GPL v3 accomplished the important goal of extending GPL compatibility to the Apache license among others. Losing compatibility with GPL v2 has been at most a minor annoyance while bringing Apache into the fold has proved to be of major importance.

By the way, in case you didn't catch the sarcasm in my post, I disagree with the OP. If you want to release your code under whatever license you want, go for it. If some zealot comes along and claims you're being hostile to his ideology, give yourself a pat on the back. It's particularly ironic because the MSPL doesn't have a problem with GPL code, it's the GPL that has a problem with MSPL code (or almost any non GPL license... except GPL licenses are incompati

I didn't, and I will thank you not to put words in my mouth, troll. Microsoft's reasons for design the MS-PL as it did are transparently obvious, apparently to all but you. Unlike MS-PL, the GPL v3 is a major success, clearly an improvement on v2.

Microsoft was earned a complete lack of trust and respect from the general community and your simpering will not change that. There is no reason whatsoever to suspect Microsoft of honorable intentions in designing its embrace/extent/extinguish series of faux-open licenses. Fortunately for the rest of us, the world in general has little interest in them. The fact that Pixar does only reflects badly on what could otherwise be a worthwhile project. Don't take my word for it, follow the project and see what hap

The license is all of a quarter page long. There's no nefariousness hidden there, despite what you'd like to imagine. Notably, the incompatibility between the GPL and the MSPL does not come from the MSPL.

Microsoft has done some nasty things but we're talking about an open source license, not a multinational corporation.

In one corner, there's a short license that permits distribution in any form, includes a patent grant, and places no restrictions on people downstream other than revoking their patent license if they sue others and does not place any restrictions on what code can be linked to it.

In the other corner, we have a multi-page monstrosity that places strict restrictions on exactly what can be linked with it to such a degree that different versions of the same license are mutually incompatible.

Can you people stop pissing and moaning and hairsplitting about license terms and allow some discussion of what this tech means for the medium-term future?

A few questions I'd certainly love to get answered from someone who's knowledgeable:

-Is this the REYES algorythm?-Does it differ in important ways from the Catmull-Clark subdivision that's pretty much standard in off-the-shelf 3D software?-With the increasing prevalence of raytraced GPU/coprocessor rendering replacing rasterisation in near-realtime applications, is this tech now mostly irrelevant?-What are some things the release of this technology might make possible?-Does this have any impact on the patent encumbrance surrounding Renderman's nearly-free motion blur?-How much longer were those REYES patents going to last anyway?

Pixar's subidivision surfaces are very efficient in terms of graphic visualization, parametrization, deformation and texturing. Other implementations are significant slower. The Pixar video presentation at SIGGRAPH shows they work great in realtime, something important when you're doing animation. As an example, NewTek Lightwave Catmull-Clarck subdivs have serious implementation problems, something that can be solved with opensubdivs. Luxology Modo

Can anyone explain what the consequences of it being released under Microsoft Public License are? Is it toxic to OSS ecosystem, or is it just GPL incompatible (and presumably part of the "extend" part of MS's attack on FOSS)?

This is the least restrictive of the Microsoft licenses and allows for distribution of compiled code for either commercial or non-commercial purposes under any license that complies with the Ms-PL. Redistribution of the source code itself is permitted only under the Ms-PL.[12] Initially titled Microsoft Permissive License, it was renamed to Microsoft Public License while being reviewed for approval by the Open Source Initiative (OSI). The license was approved on October 12, 2007 along with the Ms-RL.[11] According to the Free Software Foundation, it is a free software license but not compatible with the GNU GPL.[6]

Open Source Legal is wrong, at least according to FSF [gnu.org] and the Ms-PL license text,"If you distribute any portion of the software in source code form, you may do so only under this license by including a complete copy of this license with your distribution."

I.E. Anyone outside of the MS ecosystem shall not directly use our code. Granted, piping is always an option, even with GPLv3, but this is an anti Free software clause aimed directly keeping "shared source" away from actual open source implementation.

Uh... there's no such thing as a license that doesn't require you to distribute the code under that license, and requiring someone to include a complete copy of the license is also pretty much the norm. By your definition, all non-GPL licenses are incompatible with the GPL. Sorry, but licenses don't work that way. GPL-compatible does not mean that you can simply copy and paste code willy-nilly into a GPL project.

GPL-compatible does not mean that you can simply copy and paste code willy-nilly into a GPL project.

Most BSD style licenses are unencumbered enough that you can relicense direct derivatives (not just composite works) under practically any terms you want. Commercial companies do this all the time, and it is in fact what makes BSD style licensing for open source software projects so controversial - anyone can create a proprietary fork at will, with components that quickly lose their BSD character as modifications are added.

GPL licensed derivatives of BSD licensed components can be created in the same manner. It is the copyright of the authors of the modifications that makes the relicensing have teeth, it is the lack of a prohibition on additional license terms in BSD style licenses that makes it possible.

The MS-PL, on the other hand, specifically prohibits this practice, much like the Mozilla Public License (MPL). Both are moderate copyleft licenses, designed to make sure that derivatives of covered source files are always available under the terms of the original license.

I agree, you certainly cannot remove the copyright notice, nor can you remove the license. However, you can indicate that a given file contains "portions" copyright so and so that are subject to a BSD license, and portions copyright someone else that are subject to a more restrictive license.

That has the effect of subjecting the whole file (assuming substantial modifications have been made) to the restrictions contained in both licenses, because the copyrights of both the original copyright holder and late

That has the effect of subjecting the whole file (assuming substantial modifications have been made) to the restrictions contained in both licenses...

No, it doesn't effectively change the license on the existing code. The portions that were under a BSD license remain so licensed, at least to the extent that the person who receives it can still figure out what parts were originally covered by the BSD license. The clause in the MS-PL requiring that distribution of that code in source code form must be under

I didn't say it changed the license on anything. I said it has the effect (the practical effect) of subjecting the whole file to the more restrictive license. The reason why this is the case is (as you note) it can quickly become impossible to determine which lines are subject to which license.

Of course it doesn't subject the original code to the more restrictive license, you just don't know what is the original code. If you want to create

It looks toxic. An intentionally toxic license by Microsoft with patent ties, or in other words, a patent grant that ties it to the Microsoft license thus being incompatible with all the open source licenses people actually want to use. [gnu.org] And the patents are all bogus no doubt, they are the "my lawyer budget is bigger than yours" kind of intellectual property. Prove me wrong please, I would love that, but I am not optimistic.

It's a pretty reasonable open source license, actually. It is basically a BSD license, plus a patent grant, plus a mutually assured destruction clause regarding patent suits. I'm most impressed by the fact that it is about three fewer pages than the average open source license seems to be these days. A normal person might actually be able to comprehend it.:-)

Oh, and at a glance, I don't see anything that would be incompatible with GPL v3, which from Microsoft is pretty remarkable.... On the flip side, it is incompatible with GPL v2. This makes it absolutely bizarre and backwards as corporate open source licenses go....

Cool. Yeah, GPLv2 is a touchy subject. For that matter, GPL in general is a touchy subject because of all the "no additional restrictions" stuff. That said, for something like Blender, it might make more sense to define a standard plug-in interface and then dynamically load this as a plug-in. Then, the license doesn't matter at all.:-)

Oh, and let add this: if Pixar is actually genuine they will additionally dual license this code base under LGPL (v3), and I will be impressed. If not... well, each person can interpret that for themselves.

Let's put that claim to rest right now. It's the opposite of reasonable. Instead the Ms-PL is intentionally designed to divide the open source community. See this informed discussion. [lwn.net]

Sorry, but that discussion is just about as uninformed as they get. License compatibility does not mean that you can strip off one person's license and copyright and substitute your own. Compatibility means that you can combine the two in a single piece of software. The way you do this is by including one piece of code, complete with license and copyright notice, and call functions in that piece of code from another piece of software with different licensing terms. In no case is code licensed under a different set of terms, except insofar as effectively the product as a whole is governed by the union of the restrictions.

What makes a license incompatible are clauses in one license that do not allow you to impose additional restrictions, coupled with terms in the other license that impose additional restrictions above and beyond what are allowed by the first license. Such a situation does not exist here, so the licenses are compaible.

If your definition of "compatible" requires being able to substitute the GPL's terms, then there's no such thing as a GPL-compatible license other than either a dual-licensed work, a work licensed under the same version of the GPL, or a work in the public domain (and because not all countries recognize the right of an author to place a work in the public domain, there's no such thing as a GPL-compatible license at all by that definition other than a dual-licensed work). Your definition is thus completely unreasonable and nonstandard.

Boo hoo. All the criticisms apply equally or more to the GPL. The license seems to be about halfway between the BSD license and the LGPL. You COULD make a library out of the MSPL code and link to it from GPLed code. Unless something in the GPL forbids that.

It's pretty hypocritical to criticize a license for requiring that redistribution of the source of that code or derivatives must be under the same license and then turn around and recommend everyone use the GPL instead.

| It's pretty hypocritical to criticize a license for requiring that redistribution of the source of that code or derivatives must be under the same license and then turn around and recommend everyone use the GPL instead.

This this this! Finally - someone points out the elephant, the pot calling the kettle black. For once I'd like the GPL community to admit this. The tactics and business models supported by GPL-style licenses is why I never have, and never will, release my software with one of their lic

...And this type of reaction is why more companies aren't exactly tripping over themselves to open their code.

It's free for non-commercial AND commercial use. What the fuck else do you want? Are you really that offended that their open-source rendering library has the word "Microsoft" even tangentially related to it? Do you really think they would publish it under GPLv3, which could potentially force them to open their entire codebase?

It's free for non-commercial AND commercial use. What the fuck else do you want?

In a nutshell, lose the Ms-PL in order to appear genuine and gain the trust of the community. We have seen enough faux-open code bases, thankyou. Let's see proof that this is actually open and not a strategem, in which case Pixar would get the love they deserve.

This license governs use of the accompanying software. If you use the software, you accept this license. If you do not accept the license, do not use the software.1.Definitions The terms "reproduce," "reproduction," "derivative works," and "distribution" have the same meaning here as under U.S. copyright law. A "contribution" is the original software, or any additions or changes to the software. A "contributor" is any person that distributes its contributio

1. The license was penned by Microsoft, therefore it is evil.2. Pixar is releasing the code. Pixar was financed by Steve Jobs into a multi-billion dollar corporation. Corporations and Steve Jobs are evil, therefore the only logical thing to conclude about Pixar's intentions is that they are evil.3. The license is not GPL, or some similar Google license, so it is patent encumbered. Patents are evil, so the code is evil.4. Any open source code should be GPLv3 because RMS says so, therefore the everything about this code dump is designed to embrace, extend, and extinguish s some already existing but half done FOSS alternative. That is evil.

How could this code and its license be any more evil? I've just proved to you that this whole thing is like the spawn of Satan––or Blizzard entertainment, 'cause they can't fix Diablo III.

And this type of reaction is why more companies aren't exactly tripping over themselves to open their code

Actually they are opening things up. Even things like the source code for the old CDE desktop are being made available (just for an example from the last week), despite having multiple owners that all had to agree and all who were earlier suspicious of the idea of providing their source code.Your other stuff is a bit out there since nobody is stupid enough to release a commercial product under a short

Richard Stallman and the FSF specifically encourage library-writers to license under the GPL so that proprietary programs cannot use the libraries, in an effort to protect the free-software world by giving it more tools than the proprietary world.

Following this assertion by RMS and the FSF, Pixar's release of their surface rendering library under the GPL would be an immediate violation as their own proprietary rendering systems obviously utilize this library. Therefore, if they wished to release it as GPL, they would subsequently be forced to A) Stop using it outright, or B) GPL their own in-house software that links to it to avoid being in violation of the GPL.

Huh? They own the copyright. A copyright holder can never impose limitations on themselves that they don't wish to adhere to. If you read the license on installation, Microsoft gives no one the right to redistribute Windows. Do you think that includes themselves as well somehow?

You're comparing apples to oranges. Windows isn't released under the Ms-PL. Try telling Microsoft to give you the source and see what they say.

So you're right about the copyright holder not being limited. A small victory for you on a small oversight by me. And what about the other animation studios who use proprietary products like Maya? Releasing OpenSubdiv under the GPL would fuck them over, because now they're barred from using it just because RMS can't sleep at night knowing that free software m

You make a good point, but you're missing a better one. The only way Pixar would ever be required to release *ALL* of their source code, as a result of licensing this module under GPL, is if they were to distribute *ALL* of their binaries, as well. Since they aren't doing this, and they aren't going to do this, they don't have to release source for anything. Now, if GP were in any way correct, they would have to release source for any binaries they distribute that make use of this library, were it released

Sir, that is wrong. Since that would be a license they are releasing it for OTHERS. They, on the other hand, are the holders of the IP, therefore entitled to use it as they want under any conditions they wish. They also keep the right to re-release it under any other license they want, and hell, even grant others a license that allows any other set of liberties. Therefore, no, they could perfectly release it as GPL and still use it themselves.

This is not how copyright works. There is no rule that says that a creator cannot offer their product under many different license terms, nor requiring them to conform to the license terms they require of others. It remains their product to do with as they will until they transfer ownership of the copyright.

The rights holder can release this under the GPL; they just can't use any modifications made to the GPL'd version. Just because they release some code under a license doesn't mean that they, the authors, can't ALSO release it under a more restrictive license for personal use. The GPL gives the author COMPLETE freedom, including the freedom to license their code under other licenses that conflict with it.

Oh please. The GPL does not give the author COMPLETE freedom, copyright law does.

Furthermore, the GPL does not limit what USERS can do, it controls what DISTRIBUTORS must do. So even if your bizarre theory that an author must act under the same terms as he licenses it to others were true (and it most certainly isn't), the GPL wouldn't kick in until they DISTRIBUTED the code. Usage has nothing to do with it.

Did you mean to respond to the GP?I was responding to the GP's argument about distribution -- and saying that they just can't use any modifications made to distributed GPL'd code in their proprietarily distributed version, but otherwise can do whatever they want. Which appears to be exactly what you responded with, but with more CAPS and fewer examples.

I meant to respond to you. You made the statement "The GPL gives the author COMPLETE freedom" (caps yours). This is factually incorrect. Neither the GPL nor any other copyright license gives the author anything. They also don't take anything away from the author. Copyright law, not some license, gives all rights in a work to the author.

The rest of your post talks solely about 'use'. You never once mention the word 'distribute'. GPL does not apply to use, it applies to distribution. So, even if the d

Following this assertion by RMS and the FSF, Pixar's release of their surface rendering library under the GPL would be an immediate violation as their own proprietary rendering systems obviously utilize this library. Therefore, if they wished to release it as GPL, they would subsequently be forced to A) Stop using it outright, or B) GPL their own in-house software that links to it to avoid being in violation of the GPL.

No.

GPL restricts only what happens to publically available software. Anybody can take and modify GPL code for in-house products as much as they like, it's only when they distribute it that they have to make sourcecode available. Ofcourse "distribute" was somewhat open to interpretation; GPLv3 attempts to fix this.

It just means they can't use any modifications made by other copyright owners, unless they get permission to do so from those other people. This permission would likely take the form of a GPL-incom